I have been playing music with serious intent since '95. I toured the west coast twice ('00 and '01) in a van with my local band, oddibe. Along the way, we would play our songs with acoustic guitars on campuses, seling cds to make gas and food money.
More recently, I toured the US several times over and played on numerous television shows (Tonight Show, TRL, Carson Daly Show, etc.) and a reality tv show on mtv called Score. This was all done in the company of Ryan Cabrera. Now a teacher, I make music in my spare time.
While I am well aware of the current radio formula for songs (v/ch/v/ch/b/ch), I am not always happy to abide by it, and also of the belief that it will change (if not in structure, then perhaps in length). With more distractions every year (television, ads, radio, internet, etc), I expect Western civilization to do nothing but have a continual decrease in attention span.